COLORED MOONS

But first, I begin with the the U.S./Israel vs Iran War.

Israel has attacked Lebanon recently. Despite ongoing ceasefire talks and fragile truces mediated by the United States, Israeli drone and air strikes have continued to target multiple areas across southern Lebanon, including Nabatieh, Tyre, and the Bint Jbeil district.
The Strait of Hormuz is not totally closed.

A trickle of marine traffic continues.
Many ships take the extreme southern route away from Iran.
Insurance costs are very high.
A container ship was struck by an Iranian drone yesterday,

Technical talks in Switzerland about that MOU are occurring daily, but there has been no announcement when any high level discussion will next be held.
The U.S. House this month passed a resolution directing the President to end hostilities, while the U.S. Senate also passed the same measure on a 50-48 vote. But a concurrent resolution is only a symbolic rebuke, and need not be followed by President Trump.

What do Americans think of the U.S.-Iran deal?
- 23% of respondents, including 50% of Republicans, believe the U.S. is now in a stronger position with regard to Iran than before the war.
- Half from the poll said the conflict was not worth it. 63% think it is unlikely that the MOU will lead to lasting peace.
- Only 18% think the deal will deliver lasting peace.
- Trump's 47% approval rating of January 2025 has slipped to 34%, a second term low.
In a CBS/YouGov poll a week ago, 57% of Americans believed the war led to more problems than it solved.

Further 69% said they do not think the U.S. has permanently stopped Iran's nuclear program. 74% do not believe the U.S. has made Iran's people safe and free.
78% believe that the U.S. should end the war now.
Trump's approval has fallen from 53% in February to 38% now.

The latest death toll from the those two Venezuala earthquakes passed 900 and up to at least 920. 3,000 were injured. The country's a mess with the government in turmoil, and the U.S. is trying to get in to help. Want to personally help? Here is a CNN site.

The next Strawberry Moon (the first full moon of summer) will peak on Monday, June 29, 2026, at 7:57 PM Eastern Time (or 2:57 PM in your local time in Honolulu). [1, 2] Of course, the Moon won't be colored red. The nickname is for the first summer full moon, for this is about when wild strawberries ripen.

Same for Blue Moon, which is the second full moon in a single calendar month. Under normal circumstances, the moon is not blue. Mind you there are occasions when volcanic ash or smoke from large forest fires can scatter red light, allowing blue light to pass through, creating a blue-tinted moon.

And, by the way, do you really know the color of our Moon? And Sun?

The sun emits all colors of the visible spectrum towards Earth.

However, as sunlight passed through our atmosphere, shorter blue and violet wavelengths are scattered way, leaving the longer wavelengths that make the sun look YELLOW.
At sunrise and sunset, sunlight has to pass through more of the atmosphere, scattering yellow light, leaving only orange and red.

Our Moon only reflects sunlight towards Earth. Thus, what reaches your eyes is a pale, muted gray or white, and maybe even brownish-gray. Why?

The lunar surface is made of dust and rocks containing titanium, iron and magnesium.
When sunlight hits them, they create a faint combination of blue from titanium and redish to orange tint from iron.
However, while scientific instruments can see them, our eyes can't distinguish these colors, and when the moonlight comes to Earth, we see this color as a neutral gray on the Moon.
When moonlight reaches Earth, the atmosphere scatters light, and while mostly colored white up above, begins to also turn yellow, orange or red when sitting low on the horizon.

Mind you, the Moon can be all kinds of hues. I asked Google AI about this:

The Moon's true surface color is an off-white, brownish-gray. However, depending on atmospheric conditions and minerals, it can appear in dozens of hues—ranging from deep reds and oranges to blues and purples.[1, 2, 3, 4]

The varying colors seen from Earth are primarily caused by how light scatters through Earth’s atmosphere. Here is what causes the different lunar colors: [1, 2]

Gray/White: The Moon's natural, unaltered color, reflecting sunlight. [1, 2]
Yellow/Orange/Red: Commonly seen when the Moon is low on the horizon. Earth's atmosphere scatters short-wavelength colors (like blue), allowing longer-wavelength colors (reds and yellows) to pass through. [1, 2]

Blood Red (Lunar Eclipse): Occurs during a total lunar eclipse when sunlight passes through the edges of Earth's atmosphere, casting a red hue on the Moon. [1, 2]

Blue: A rare phenomenon caused by larger dust or ash particles in the Earth's atmosphere (e.g., from volcanic eruptions or major forest fires). [1, 2]

Here are full moons of 48 different colors.

Taken by Marcella Giulia Pace.

What color is the Moon? It depends on the night. Outside of the Earth's atmosphere, the dark Moon, which shines by reflected sunlight, appears a magnificently brown-tinged gray. Viewed from inside the Earth's atmosphere, though, the moon can appear quite different. The featured image highlights a collection of apparent colors of the full moon documented by one astrophotographer over 10 years from different locations across Italy. A red or yellow colored moon usually indicates a moon seen near the horizon. There, some of the blue light has been scattered away by a long path through the Earth's atmosphere, sometimes laden with fine dust. A blue-colored moon is more rare and can indicate a moon seen through an atmosphere carrying larger dust particles. What created the purple moon is unclear -- it may be a combination of several effects. The last image captures the total lunar eclipse of 2018 July -- where the moon, in Earth's shadow, appeared a faint red -- due to light refracted through air around the Earth. The next full moon will occur at the end of this month (moon-th) and is known in some cultures as the Beaver Moon.

Who is she?

Is a primary school teacher from Sicily.
Here is another photo she took in 2022 of a Moon greenflash. Fascinating!

The recent Artemis 2 flyby of the Moon resulted in some amazing photos.

Single photos just showed mostly gray. However:

"You can do it with a single photo, but it's really, really low resolution from a noise standpoint," McCarthy said. "What's different about those different photos is the noise, because noise, by definition, is random. So, when I'm stacking those photos together, I'm able to average out that noise, and then that noise vanishes … That's why you hear astrophotographers talk about the signal-to-noise ratio, because when you stack, the signal stays the same, but the noise diminishes."

And wow, what about the above? Read the article to better understand what happened.

Purple Moon from Samsung. Purple is possible when a reddish hue Moon near the horizon mixes with the blue tint of the night sky, combined with the presence of wildfire smoke or volcanic ash.

Brilliant Red Moon has been photographed during the 2023 Canadian wildfires, caused by Rayleigh scattering.